


Nature

by TrisB



Series: Caprica High [2]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, F/M, Humor, Spin the Bottle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-09
Updated: 2005-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrisB/pseuds/TrisB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ketchup bottle is solid in his hand, and he admires the label as he sets it into motion; 57 varieties, 57 futures, and, maybe, a chance to act on tonight's omnipresent desire after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nature

Things that never fail to be much more appealing in theory than practice: attempting drastic changes in appearance (haircuts, dye jobs, conspicuous piercings, etc.) the day before senior portraits are taken; eating an entire package of cookies, chips, or other trans-fatty-acid-laden foodlike items; riding the Gravitron at the local fair until you literally get sick of it; playing Spin the Bottle.

***

They're using ketchup.

The bottle is in constant motion, the lights are too low and bizarrely colored, and in a vague haze of rum and Coke, Lee wishes he had not agreed to this. He likes to think that he is not easily susceptible to peer pressure, but Gaylord — uh, Gaeta — had been starting to look mopey. His party, never destined for wild success, had been threatening to die a mortifying pre-midnight death, and so when Kara suggested the game, Lee hadn't really considered the ramifications beyond cheering up Gaeta and hopefully kissing Kara again. Play had been halted for an hour while a group of kids accompanied Galen and his fake ID to Safeway for more alcohol, and in the intervening time Lee had rather enjoyed himself, sitting on the couch and conversing with Kara and Kat while, improbably, jazz music played. Kat kept fixing them mixed drinks with the remains of Gaeta's original liquor, the rest of the guys were on the other side of the room arguing about Warcraft, and there were only a few very specific ways in which Lee felt the evening could or should be improved upon.

Until, of course, Galen and his hangers-on returned bearing three packs of Smirnoff Ice and, after quickly claiming most of the alcohol for themselves, demanded that the game be reinstated. Sharon had been the first to sit down and beam over her Smirnoff expectantly, and within two minutes everyone else had assembled on the carpet. Even if Kara had to drag Lee bodily off the sofa and into the circle.

"Christ, Lee, what's your problem?" she grunted, arranging him as one would a particularly recalcitrant mannequin. "Are you really that afraid of having to kiss someone? Girls don't _actually_ have cooties, you know."

"That is _not_ my problem," Lee had retorted with as much dignity as he could muster while being manhandled, and wished mulishly that he could demonstrate to her how very unafraid of girl cooties he actually was.

The bottle finishes its most recent spin. It points at Simon Tam, a recent transfer student who currently seems about three minutes from total nervous breakdown. But he's drunk and giggling, like everybody else, and he manages to not implode while being kissed by Regina Seelix, who takes her time and then some. When they break apart Simon is flushed, but looks pleased; Costanza next to him punches his arm in a sharing-of-manliness gesture, and Sharon cackles. "That looked so fun that from now on, you have to French kiss. Okay?" She glares directly at Lee, who has been surreptitiously attempting to dodge each and every bottle spin, and her tone brooks no argument, so he waits until she knocks over a half-full bottle to glare back.

Next to Regina is Galen. His spin at the ketchup points to Cally, who blushes furiously. Lee doesn't really know either of them, but glances at Kara anyway to see if she shares the fuzzy inkling he's getting from Cally's hesitant crawl into the center of the circle; she is staring intently into her empty glass. Across the carpet Galen has somehow managed to make French kissing seem polite, and he shoots evil looks at anybody who threatens to laugh.

Kat spins next, and Cally's chosen again. This time everyone whoops unabashedly as Cally leans over for her second kiss, apparently having overcome whatever shyness impeded her with Galen. The two girls kiss for several moments longer than anybody could reasonably call necessary, even with the "French" specification, and by the end of it Lee is, um. He applauds distractedly and gazes away from the group into an interestingly-lit corner in an effort to raise the standard of his thoughts. The night is surreal and Kara warm beside him. He could lean over and just sort of dip his head onto her shoulder; he could hook his elbow around her neck and fall back onto the soft carpet; he could do all sorts of things, and it would be her fault anyway for showing up at this party and explaining to him the wonders of Bacardi. He could kiss her right then and there, and it would be her fault anyway for kissing him after the dance and acting like it was _nothing_. Nothing, when it was everything, and she is grinning at him in the weird blue light cast by Gaylord's dorky party bulb, and yes, it is _everything_ and just the thing, and Kara is giving him a look that is not at all receptive to spontaneous extragame kissing.

"Dude," she says, looking annoyed. "It's your fucking turn."

Right. Lee straightens up, having leaned alarmingly close into her without realizing it, and hopes nobody else did either. He's pretty damn sure Kara didn't miss that one, though, and is already resigning himself to a future where she hates him forever when she suddenly whispers "Cooties!" into his ear, and he feels a lot better. The ketchup bottle is solid in his hand, and he admires the label as he sets it into motion; 57 varieties, 57 futures, and, maybe, a chance to act on tonight's omnipresent desire after all. It comes to rest and he hears Kara squeal before he can even follow the white lid's trail to his match. It is not Kara.

It's Karl.

"Oh, baby," Karl crows, grinning dementedly. "Eat your hearts out, ladies!" With an impossible strut that he somehow manages to incorporate into drunken crawling across somebody's mom's carpet — surely that can't _be_ — he makes his way to the center of the circle and beckons to Lee. "Whassamatta, Adama? Not man enough for me? " Beside the empty spot that Karl just vacated, Chloe is having a giggling fit. Lee is peripherally aware of Kara bouncing maniacally next to him, and of the party at large readying to mock him until death for being too chicken to suck it up and make out with a _boy_. Lee Adama is not afraid of such trifling things.

"No," he hears himself say in his most dulcet of tones. "No, I'm plenty man for you. Agathon." Lee rises with a nearly intentional sway to his knees and meets Karl in the center, resolutely ignoring the catcalls that surround him. "I think you'll find that if anyone is not man enough for this, ah, encounter...um...that it will be yourself." He nods. Yes.

"You talk big," smirks Karl. For a split second Lee thinks he sees Karl shoot some sort of deeply significant look at Kara, but he cannot interpret it, and the next moment they are kissing, and that pretty much occupies every corner of his mind.

Karl has shaved recently. His skin is soft and not the stubbly nightmare Lee imagined might be par for the course in kissing a guy; he'd pause to wonder what he thought girls felt when they kissed _him_ , but no time for that, or brain either. Karl tastes like the faux lemonade of Smirnoff Ice and the faux sugar of Vanilla Coke. It is fizzy, sweet, and likeable. Karl smells like old-fashioned shaving cream and sour apple and Gaeta carpet. It could be worse.

Karl kisses nicely.

It's too little, though, and it doesn't live up to the kind of scandal their friends are hooting over. For all his swagger, Karl is pretty obviously unwilling to put any sort of passion or personality into this kiss, doesn't want to come off looking like a pansy. Lee is fairly sure that the only girl whose opinion he values already finds him pathetically prissy, and so it seems natural when he says to himself, _fuck it_ , and anchors his hands firmly around Karl's broad shoulders.

Somebody shrieks, and Karl is panicking and making as if to pull away. Lee ignores these things and slips his tongue in past Karl's teeth, opens his mouth wider, to receive reciprocation. The inside of Karl's mouth is soft and wet and warm, as mouths tend to be, and it occurs to Lee that he doesn't feel very gay, and that kissing is perhaps foolproof in enjoyability. The thought is heartening, a little bit thrilling, as is Karl's languorous final taste of his own mouth, and then, by some mutual instinctive agreement, they break apart.

Lee regards his friend as they both wobble a bit on their knees. "None of that girly crap," Karl says, and grins and collapses back toward the circle at Chloe's well-aimed kick. Feeling satisfied, Lee retreats to the edge, and takes care to not give Kara the satisfaction of meeting his eyes, nodding to his shocked and clapping friends.

***

The game peters out soon afterward, since at any good party Spin the Bottle can only last for so long before people generally lose interest in the jurisdiction of the bottle and take matters into their own hands, as it were. Gaeta is roaming around picking up empty bottles and looking stressed. Karl and Chloe are huddled in an alcove on the opposite side of the living room, Regina and Simon are out talking on the porch, and Lee has lost track completely of most of the other guests. Flopped on the couch, and taking up the entire thing while she's at it, is Kara. Lee sits on the floor with his head tilted back on the cushion, by her hip. He watches the ceiling, but finds that since he has lost some of his buzz, it's much less interesting. Kara's fingers tap out some incomprehensible rhythm in his hair.

"Didn't know you had it in you, Adama," she says after a while.

He turns his head and peers over the cushion's edge. "What?" he asks, thinking of the years since they met and the countless times he has failed to kiss her. "Courage?"

"No," she says idly, now rubbing a circle on his scalp. "I'm thinking...more like _fruitiness_. Although, Lee, it is perfectly natural and healthy to explore these urges. Of total gayness."

Lee snorts. "Oh, come on, Kara," he shoots back. "You always thought I had that in me."

She rolls over onto her side and grins at him wickedly. "But I had no idea how _committed_ you were."

"Ah," he replies, "ah! Never underestimate the moral fortitude of an Adama, my friend. When we do things, we do them all the way." He flicks his eyes up to her face, expecting to see her usual wry expression, and sees something far more alarming instead.

"Is he a good kisser?" she asks in a tone of which no good can come.

"Medium, I'd say. I've had better."

"Liiiike. Me?" Kara is now looking downright predatory, but Lee has had quite an evening. _When an Adama does something, he does it all the way_ , he repeats to himself. It's been a week since the dance and the kiss; neither of them has mentioned it before now.

"Mmm."

"What does that mean? Mmm?" Kara sits up and pokes at his shoulder blade. "Come on. Who's a better kisser? It's gotta be me. Dude. No contest."

Lee says slowly, "I...don't know."

"Why don't you know?" she demands, but her urgency feels faked, and Lee knows she knows what he's going to say.

"It's just...it's been a while, Kara," he intones regretfully. "I don't think I can be fair to you. I might have to collect new data."

Kara laughs, and settles back down on the couch. "Oh, yeah?"

***

Things that sometimes fail to be much more appealing in theory than practice: listening to Dave Brubeck while being shunned by your friends because you think their favored computer game is idiotic; making out with platonic friend of the same sex while under the influence and cheered on by hormonal teenagers; behaving like hormonal teenagers for the second time in two weeks with platonic friend of the opposite sex. Lee does not fool himself for a second into thinking that his current activity with Kara has much to do with simple hormones or fading intoxication, and in some small part of his mind, he has a hard time believing she will be willing to admit anything but that. However, there is no time to ponder that; no time and no brain. There is something in their kisses that rides on instinct, not thought; that, too, would be distracting to contemplate. Lee doesn't, and concentrates.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Author's commentary, with Caprica High co-author Peripeteia, [here](http://allbackups.dreamwidth.org/319591.html).


End file.
